Exact Solution to a Refined Contact Problem for Biphasic Cartilage Layers

Solution to biomechanical contact problems for biological joints are of great importance for medical applications, especially in analysing different stages of osteoarthitis. As the cartilage layers are extremely thin in comparison with the characteristic size of the bones while the physics of the problem is rather complicated, direct computations can meet with serious numerical difficulties [1]. This explains those several attempts which have been made to take advantage from existence of the small dimensionless parameter in the problem by employing asymptotic analysis [2, 3]. Few solutions are available [2–4] for monotonic loading where the latter [4] has been extended for the case of an arbitrary time dependent load in [5]. All these solutions are based on the simplified kinematic relationship in contact zone when the tangential displacement can be negligible in the analysis.